


The Future At Hand

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Infinity War Fix It [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 03:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14584383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: The afterlife among the roots of Yggdrasil is...interesting.





	The Future At Hand

"Death hasn't improved your patience," Frigga told Loki fondly as she sat down beside him near the roots of Yggdrasil. There were some blasted branches on the World Tree, but the remaining ones at least had survived. They looked sickly and empty, drooping from the main trunk.

"I am at least starting to manage the _spá_ better," he replied without looking up from the weaving he had been working on. Each thread was precarious and precious, and so many had broken off in his hands already. He tried not think about that or the fact that the threads all seemed awfully familiar in this realm.

"Not quite as well as your _seiðr,"_ she remarked, lifting one shoulder in a half shrug.

"Few things work as well."

"Perhaps if you had help?"

"I need to learn the shape of this," he said, frustration all too evident. "What use is it for me to start the working if I cannot even finish it!"

"Other mages have fallen," Frigga said gently, placing a hand on his arm.

A shiver ran through him at the touch; Loki still wasn't used to being dead or having the dead touch him. It was worse when one of the newly dead lost track of their ghostly bodies and ran _through_ him. That made him feel as though he didn't even exist anymore, though he really wasn't sure if this was existing.

Hope still existed, and he tried to hang onto that. He'd found any number of familiar souls, though Odin wasn't, as he had fragmented completely long before Ragnarok had begun, and Hela had been utterly destroyed when Asgard was. If he hadn't found Thor, he might still be alive after all. He had still been alive when Heimdall was stabbed, though Heimdall's all knowing vision was gone. He sat in the land of the dead and couldn't see beyond its borders, discomfited by his new reality. It didn't help that he couldn't find his sister, but Heimdall tried to stay positive about that, too. If she wasn't dead, Sif was out in the galaxy somewhere.

Loki let out a breath, watching the threads dance across his fingers. "I managed to twist Thor's thread. He knows where they are now."

Though he didn't look up to see it, he knew Frigga was looking on with pride. "I saw. I am quite proud of all your work."

"If I look up, I might lose the shape of it," he admitted. "I might lose track of which thread is which."

"This is a most difficult working, especially if alone. But you aren't. Let me take up part of the burden."

His eyes blurred with tears. "I am a prince of Asgard and the rightful king of Jotunheim. I am a formidable _seiðrmadr,_ but the spells weren't enough. Trickery couldn't save them, even though I _tried."_

Her grip tightened on his arm. "You _tried,_ Loki. You were brave and noble, and you used your gifts to buy the others time."

"You showed me how to do this. I can do this."

"Loki..."

 _"Why can't I do this?"_ he all but wailed.

"I can help you. There are others here now, they can help you."

"I have to show you-"

"I know you, Loki," Frigga said, voice gentle as always. "I never doubted your skills or ability. You know I never doubted your true loyalties, even when you did. You are my son," she said, tucking his hair behind his ears as she used to do when he was a boy. "Some things will never change."

He was tempted to look up at her, to let her see the desperation he had tried so long to hide. "If I can't prove to you-"

"There's nothing to prove," she disagreed, and kissed his temple. "Let me take up the threads now. It's my turn to carry the burden."

She was right, of course she was right, and he lifted his hands to her in defeat. "Please," he whispered. "I can't make the sun shine on them if I can't see it."

"But I can," Frigga murmured. The threads were deftly transferred to her skilled hands, and they were once again all but invisible to his eyes. Her fingers moved quickly, weaving effortlessly, and she didn't have to look at them to keep track. Her gaze was locked on his, understanding and love shining. "Rest now. Restore your strength, and then you can begin again."

Loki wished he was strong enough to say no, but he did crave rest. Nodding, he moved off to a different area of the Norns' plain.

***

"You seem very different from the last time I saw you."

Loki cracked his eyes open and saw Doctor Stephen Strange standing over his prone form. "Go away."

"All right, _that's_ the same."

"What do you want?" Loki asked, not caring that his tone was churlish in the face of Strange's even ones.

Strange sat down beside him, legs crossed and hands on his knees. "The others here, they tell me that you tried to save them from Thanos. And that you sacrificed an Infinity Stone to bargain for Thor's life."

"Didn't work."

"Thor's still alive."

"And there are still far too many dead," Loki replied flatly.

He hadn't been bad at rule, exactly. There had been plenty enough to do on Asgard, building up its culture and knowledge base. He hadn't wanted to try diplomacy with other realms because he knew he didn't have the patience for it at that time, and to try to do it as Odin... He would have been seen through in an instant, and Loki was self serving but not stupid. Let others do that kind of dirty work. He could remain safe and bask in adoration for a time, however undeserved it truly was.

"I'm surprised you care."

"As if you do," Loki replied, not letting on how much those words stung.

"There are chances, however small, that can result in overturning this outcome."

"The realm of the Norns was never meant to be the realm of the dead," Loki scoffed, "yet here we all are, because there is no other place large enough to house our souls."

"But see, that's just it," Strange said, sounding oddly excited as he leaned over his knees to peer at his sprawled form. Loki was too exhausted to even sneer in his direction. "All the realms in the universe that were decimated, all the different dimensions we could have gone to, and we came _here."_

"So? We're still dead."

"And able to draw on the trillions of souls here, the power of the World Tree, and the castoff energy of different dimensions," he replied flatly. "This place where the Norns are? It's a nexus of different realities. Different possibilities. We can use that."

"We?" Loki scoffed, shaking his head. With some effort, he pulled himself up to a sitting position so he could face Strange. "Look around you, sorcerer. Who is this we you speak of?"

Strange smiled, confidence oozing out of him. "There are other casters here. Others gifted in the mystic arts. Some were even touched by Infinity Stones."

Loki stilled. "They would resonate with that energy."

"Yes, they would."

"And we can lock onto its power."

"Yes, we can."

He stared at Strange's triumphant grin. "What is it that you think you can do?"

"Your mother is gifted at the mystic arts," Strange said. "I felt that energy when I arrived here."

"Frigga knows the _ørlǫg_ of the _wyrd."_

"Nordic terms," Strange murmured, as if rifling through his memory. Perhaps he was. Loki had the sense that he actually had prodigious talent that backed up the arrogant attitude.

"It's the easiest way to convey the idea to mortals," Loki huffed.

He nodded absently. "That's fate, isn't it? That she knows the laws of fate?"

"Yes." He drew out the syllable, as if Strange was a complete idiot. "So?"

Strange had that triumphant grin on his face. "Fate has a way of depending on time. And space. And soul. It needs a place and a reality to adhere to, and the power to shift people where they should go."

Loki blinked. "The Infinity Stone powers."

"Exactly. The essence of the universe distilled down into the six most powerful items that most mortals can't even touch. _I_ wouldn't even dare touch the Time Stone, and use magic to manipulate its effects. Your mother knows how it works. She knows all the laws pertaining to fate, and Thanos doesn't."

"We're still dead," Loki pointed out.

"That part isn't as difficult to get around as you think," Strange said triumphantly. "What do you know about the astral plane?"

***

Frigga laughed uproariously at Strange, which made Loki feel vindicated in some way. Ha. Take that, Sorcerer Suck-It.

He _may_ have spent far too much time in various realms pretending to be other people, absorbing odd speech patterns and behavior, but he was still the master of his craft.

"It's about time someone realized that was a possibility."

Oh. _Oh no._

Loki really hated the _spá,_ he really did.

At least Strange didn't seem to be holding it over Loki's head in a maddening kind of way. 

"Finding enough physical mass can be issue, because you still can't get around the laws of physics in the universe. This dimension is entirely different, with its own rules..." Strange petered out in confusion when Frigga held up a hand, then gestured to Yggdrasil, thousands of glittering threads streaming from her fingertips. "What? I don't get it."

"This is a place of connections and life, and it's boundaries are only those that the Norns give it." Frigga's lips quirked as Strange continued to be confused.

"The Norns. The _Fates,"_ Loki clarified, understanding what she was saying immediately. "Urðr controls what happened, Verðandi controls what is happening, Skuld controls what should be. Past, present, and future. They _create_ life and the patterns of fate, and Thanos has ruined everything. They had even told me so when I first arrived here."

"I know of the Greek myth version of the Fates," Strange began.

"These don't have separate spinning, measuring and cutting as the Greek version does," Loki said, shaking his head. "The three main Norns work together. They determine fate. Which means they also create it. They create life, which is what we would need." Loki pointed to the glittering strands trailing from Frigga's fingers. "Those are lives of the remaining Asgardians. We need to find a way to weave all the lives here along with those strands in a new world."

Strange frowned as he thought. "You're talking about creating a new dimension."

"That's one way of putting it," Frigga murmured, fingers moving once again around the strands.

"I can't build one up out of what's left," Loki admitted, feeling as though he was gutting himself for revealing the weakness. "I can monitor those lives, give them nudges. I can't do much else with their _spá_ since it's not my strength."

"So we need someone capable of creating worlds and entire dimensions."

"Which is rare indeed," Frigga agreed. "Chaos magic of that type is difficult to manage and potentially unreliable. But there are those you say that have been touched by the Infinity Stones, which means that perhaps we have a little more reliability than expected."

"I know the Space Stone," Loki mused.

"I worked with the Time Stone."

Frigga smiled at them. "Then go find those mages and we'll consult with the Norns."

Skuld was standing next to them, and Loki and Strange were both startled to see her. They hadn't realized she was coming toward them, or that she would have even cared about their plans. Neither could actually describe her or why they knew she was Skuld. Her features were indistinct, and it was impossible to tell if she was old, young or neither. She was smiling at least, and held her hand out to point in a different direction than they would have set out from. "She's that way, gentlemen. She was touched by the Mind Stone, and has quite the talent with chaos magic."

Her smile was fearsome and impossible to truly behold. Loki had the sensation of razor sharp teeth and a predator's eyes. "Find her and build your dimension. Thanos stole the futures I set into motion, and _I want them back."_

There was no arguing with the Norns, so the two men took off. They had a chaos witch to find.


End file.
